You just knew this was coming:

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the United States Tuesday to give the U.N. details about Osama bin Laden’s killing and said that all counter-terrorism operations must respect international law.
[...]
“This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law,” Pillay said in a statement issued in response to a Reuters request.

These are busy days at the White House, so to save them a little time I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a response that US officials should feel free to send to the United Nations as a reply to their request:

Full size memo here.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

New York Governor David Paterson offered to help find another site for the mosque/cultural center planned near Ground Zero, but it sounds like some of the project’s supporters first want to see what kind of place Greg Gutfeld opens up next door before making a final decision:

“While we have a tremendous amount of respect for our governor, and we are always interested in hearing what our leaders have to say, and what their ideas and proposals are. But this has always been about serving Lower Manhattan,” said proposed mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal.

One prominent mosque supporter also rejected the governor’s proposal.

He says Paterson’s remarks validate the idea that all Muslims are responsible for what terrorists did on September 11, 2001.

(h/t ZIP)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Ms. Shvarts outlined some of her personal philosophy as she took part in a performance art event Ms. Lindman organized earlier this month at Federal Hall in Manhattan, where members of the public were invited to stand on a soapbox and speak their piece.

“We have this huge f—ing institution telling us: ‘That’s what power looks like. That’s what empowerment looks like.’ It’s these patriarchal, heteronormative trappings of a voice, of a right to speak, but really I think we should think more about it,” the Yale student said, according to a video posted on YouTube but removed last night. “We need to stop being sheep.”…

The Federal Hall event was sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the “generous support of the September 11 Fund,” according to the video.

The video’s been pulled, but the LMCC’s blog confirms it.

The September 11th fund closed down in 2004 after paying out to the victims, and the rest of their money is

…committed to construction projects in lower Manhattan and to arts and culture groups that will attract people to the neighborhood.

Subsidized Aliza Shvarts ranting? Honey, fire up the family truckster…we’re going to Manhattan!

Seriously, though, I’m not outraged at this; it’s just sad. The “Soapbox Project” itself doesn’t sound that objectionable, except for its gimmicky “performance art” character: people stacking up soapboxes and ranting for one minute each in Manhattan’s Federal Hall. (Why this is relevant in the age of internet vidcasting, I’m not sure.) Shvarts’s adviser Pia Lindman organized the project, and I guess she brought Aliza along to make sure her project yielded the right kind of performance.

And so it was that a little bit of money dedicated to rebuilding New York went to underwrite Shvarts’s bozonic ramblings.

_______

Hey, here’s some better “concept art“, courtesy of Mrs. See-Dub.

I understand Michelle is knitting up one of these for Allahpundit.

So I decided to visit there this year to pay my respect to the casualties and convey my sympathy to the families. I also wanted to raise several questions and express my views. I wanted to say that in my opinion, this incident is the result of the mismanagement of the world, and the result of the inhuman management of the world. Why did such an incident take place? We need to get to the root causes. We don’t want them to turn this incident, in 20 years’ time, into another false idol like the Holocaust, which they would use as a pretext to kill peoples, and prevent anybody from opening this [Pandora's] box and examining what really happened in this incident. They might turn 9/11 into something sacred, and whoever does not accept it would be considered an infidel, whereas whoever accepts it would have to accept all the ensuing crimes. In any event, we must express our views. I believe that this way, we would have formed cordial relations with the American people, and cold have opened this issue up for discussion. Well, this is exactly what they want to prevent.

Ghastly. He’s got a little Holocaust denial, a little implied Israel bashing, a little LIHOP Trutherism, critiques of militant American foreign policy, a little bland generic lefty “root causes” rhetoric…hey, has Ron Paul picked a running mate yet?

Actually, sorry, Dr. Paul: A-jad isn’t looking for work; he’s busy firming up his position at home. Not long ago the ascension of crook Hashemi Rafsanjani to the Council of Experts suggested that “moderates” were gaining ascendancy in the Islamic Republic. But now (possibly as a reaction to the Israeli strike on Syria?) the “moderate” leading Iran’s nuclear negotiation just got fired:

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Mr. Larijani’s resignation was “a clear victory for Ahmadinejad” and shows that “the leadership is determined to continue with the nuclear program.” Mr. Bolton, who served as the Bush administration’s point man on the Iran nuclear issue before becoming U.N. ambassador, said the conflict between Mr. Larijani and Mr. Ahmadinejad is “part of the larger struggle for power after (Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei dies.”

UPDATE: Allahpundit had this earlier…

The symbol of faith and hope that inspired rescue workers and 9/11 families is being moved from the site.

The 20-foot-tall artifact was discovered in the smoking ruins two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and became a symbol for recovery workers, family and later construction crews at the site.

It will be moved to the exterior wall of nearby St. Peter’s Church during construction at the trade center site. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has said it plans to include the cross as part of its memorial or inside the Sept. 11 museum.

Making the cross part of the official memorial or museum display would be a wonderful idea–though I’m sure lawyers for the ACLU and CAIR will be ready to file their lawsuits any day now.

The American people, watching the horrific scenes in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, voiced nary a peep of dissent when the federal government handed over $21 billion in disaster relief–$18 billion in rebuilding bonds and tax credits, and $2.8 billion in immediate cash grants–to the state and city of New York. The desire to raise buildings and bring back neighborhoods and businesses far from their own communities is powerful proof of the generosity of a people whose hearts were broken but whose resolve was not.

The public has heard plenty about the “empty pit of Ground Zero,” but most do not know that the $2.8 billion allocated to Lower Manhattan in cash grants has virtually all been spent. It is difficult to trace where all the money went while being routed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and six different city and state entities. Now, after four-and-a-half years of press conferences, ribbon-cuttings and groundbreakings (the Freedom Tower has had two), at which the lost 343 firefighters were invoked and the memorial and museum was touted as the “centerpiece” around which hundreds of millions of dollars in spending projects would turn, Gov. Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have teamed up to tell the public that it’s time to “rethink” the project where the history of those valiant firefighters will be secured. Not only does this undermine Daniel Libeskind’s master plan, which always included a museum of “memory and hope,” it also manifests a standard of fiscal responsibility that the governor and the mayor have refrained from imposing anywhere else at Ground Zero.

The Port Authority’s massive new transportation hub, designed by superstar architect Santiago Calatrava, will cost an estimated $2.2 billion. Some $2 billion of that is federal money, which means that the entire country is supporting the “awe-inspiring” makeover of a terminal that will serve a mere 40,000 commuters (a number so embarrassing the Port Authority upped it to 80,000 by including round trips). The chief executive of a construction firm involved in the building illustrates the absurdity of what insiders call a “vanity project” by pointing out that $2.2 billion is enough to build a metropolitan airport.

The governor has also handed out hundreds of millions in relief money to corporate powerhouses, ostensibly to get them to relocate to Lower Manhattan or to prevent them from leaving. He signed off on $25 million worth of recovery funds for American Express, which expressly announced it hadn’t intended to leave Lower Manhattan and posted doubled profits less than a year after 9/11. Goldman Sachs, which made $4.55 billion dollars in net profits in 2004, received a $2 billion “assistance” package consisting of triple-tax-free Liberty Bonds, tax credits and cash the following year.

Mr. Bloomberg talks about a “sensible” approach to Ground Zero rebuilding, but has declined to fully explain his allocation of $650 million dollars worth of Liberty Bonds to construct the Bank of America tower in midtown, an allocation that competes with downtown redevelopment; or why he awarded $114 million in Liberty Bonds to the Ratner office tower–in Brooklyn.

The mayor has suggested locating the World Trade Center Museum in the controversial Freedom Tower, declaring it “a good use of that lobby.” To put the story of that day in another commercial office tower is an insult to the memory of the 3,000 who died and to the thousands who barely escaped. Would the Holocaust Museum be treated as an afterthought and crammed into such a space?

***
Previous:

Take Back the Memorial: partial victory
Take back the memorial: heat’s on
Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero

First, as the New York Daily News reported, the overarching idea is to minimize America .

“Don’t feature America first,” the IFC has been advised by the consortium of 14 “museums of conscience” that quietly has been consulting with the Freedom Center for the past two years over plans for the hallowed site. “Think internationally, where America is one of the many nations of the world.”

Yup, you wouldn’t want to talk about America there at Ground Zero, now would you?

Apparently, the IFC is is receiving advice and inspiration from the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, a group of museums that are devoted to portraying man’s inhumanity to man. They want the IFC to continue in this tradition.

Located in nine countries on five continents, the coalition museums chronicle apartheid in South Africa, slavery in Senegal, torture in Argentina, racism in the South and internment of Japanese-Americans in California, along with other historical horrors.

“No one in the civilized world would ever defend what happened on 9/11,” said Sarwar Ali, the coalition’s chairman and a trustee of the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh.

“But what happened after 9/11 – with restrictions placed on human rights and the cycle of revenge and the allegations of human rights abuses in prisons – must also be explored,” Ali said in a call from London.

Coalition members gathered for their annual conference at a Holocaust site in the Czech Republic in July 2004 – and assailed the United States for “reasserting its power in an arrogant way,” the conference report shows.

Among its suggestions for the place where the United States was attacked and nearly 3,000 innocents massacred: “The Freedom Center must signal its openness to contrary ideas.”

Got that? The museum commemorating the murders on 9/11 must also depict the United States as a violator of human rights around the world. Apparently, this is the true context in which these museum coalition members view 9/11. Here are some of the concerns that the coalition has about the United States.

- “It seems that whatever Americans want, Americans get!” the conference report states. “Is the definition of the ‘struggle for freedom’ simply defined by the victors, or also by those engaged in ongoing struggles? Will Americans really create a balanced vision of freedom?”

- “The WTC was attacked because it was a symbol of power and influence. In building the Freedom Tower, the U.S. reasserts its power in an arrogant way: Does this mean the U.S. will not only build the biggest building, but also define freedom for the world?”

As the New York Daily News points out in an editorial, the IFC may end up rejecting all this “inspiration.” The administrators of the IFC and Governor Pataki need to make it clear what they think the purpose of this memorial really should be. It is clear that the families of those killed at the World Trade Center are not impressed with what they’re hearing.

I can’t think of a greater insult than to invite museums from other countries of the world to come and exploit what should be America’s memorial,” said Jack Lynch, who helped carry the body of his firefighter son Michael, 30, out of the rubble.

“If you’re going to explore slavery, the Holocaust or women’s rights, you should do it at Chelsea Piers or on the East River waterfront – anywhere but Ground Zero,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles, 51, was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

“After all, it was not slavery that caused the terrorists to attack us,” said Burlingame, who has led the fight to bar the IFC.

I’m sure that there will be a public outcry once people read about these ideas for the memorial. And, we can hope that the politicians will respond and make sure that Ground Zero does not turn into a place where America is minimized.

UPDATE: If this story has you steamed, check out the Take Back the Memorial site to find out more and see what you can do.

One museum planned as part of a cultural center at the World Trade Center site will not be moving there and another devoted to freedom will only do so if it satisfies redevelopment officials, the head of the agency charged with rebuilding the site said Thursday.

In an apparent concession to some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives who said that the World Trade Center Cultural Center could disrespect the dead and America, John Whitehead gave the International Freedom Center until Sept. 23 to work with family members and produce specific plans for its museum. If the plans do not satisfy the LMDC, he said, “we will find another use or tenant consistent with our objectives for that space.”

The New York Post editorializes today: Send ‘em packing. The next step is for oblivious memorial planners to scrap the guilt complex known as the International Freedom Center (IFC). Excerpt:

The Drawing Center is to be applauded for its integrity. And honesty.

It seems “prudent . . . to look at alternatives, if in fact the Ground Zero site is not going to work out,” said center spokesman Fraser Seitel. “The Drawing Center,” he added, “like any cultural institution, stands for artistic freedom.”

By contrast, prudence and integrity are hardly terms that fairly describe the IFC’s record. Indeed, that facility (the brainchild of folks like Tom Bernstein, whose Human Rights First is suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for prisoner “abuses” in the War on Terror) has taken quite a different tack.

Unlike the Drawing Center, the IFC has disingenuously, stubbornly refused to admit that it can’t guarantee that it won’t “denigrate America,” give the nation’s enemies a platform or open its doors to base, tasteless material.

Instead, the center has responded to Gov. Pataki’s demand for such assurances — impossible demands, to be sure — by pretending it can work things out.

But let no one be fooled: It knows very well that it can’t, and won’t, provide those assurances. Not in good faith, anyway…

It has been an uphill battle for Debra Burlingame, who first blew the whistle on these plans, and the thousands of Americans who raised their voices in opposition to the desecration and politicization of Ground Zero. We owe them thanks, continued support, and defense against the likes of the New York Times, which had the gall to question their patriotism. The job of protecting the integrity of the 9/11 memorial is not over.

Take Back the Memorial has all the latest, plus details on a Sept. 10 rally in NYC.

***
Previous:

Schooling the N.Y. Times
Who are they calling un-American?
Take back the memorial: update
Take back the memorial: They’re feeling the heat
Take back the memorial: heat’s on
Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero

The liberals who snort and stamp whenever their patriotism is questioned have no problem challenging the loyalty of those who simply want the World Trade Center site to remain sacred ground. Huffs the Times:

[T]his is not really a campaign about money or space. It is a campaign about political purity – about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the Iraq war. On their Web site, www.takebackthememorial.org, critics of the cultural plan at ground zero offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities “that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events.” This, to us, sounds un-American.

The Take Back The Memorial response is here.

All I’ll add is that a newspaper dumb enough to publish editorials like this one in a post-9/11 world has some nerve lecturing anyone else about a “sense of proportion”–let alone about what’s “un-American.”

***
Previous:

Take back the memorial: update
Take back the memorial: They’re feeling the heat
Take back the memorial: heat’s on
Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, acknowledging protests by relatives of Sept. 11 victims, is taking “one last look” at alternatives to placing a “museum of freedom” and art museum adjacent to the planned memorial, foundation chairman John Whitehead said.

Possible substitutes could include another spot within the 16-acre trade center site, outside the section that includes the foundations of the destroyed twin towers, or “immediately beyond the 16 acres,” he said.

The decision to reconsider the location of the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center came at a closed meeting of the foundation’s board yesterday, and followed protests by 14 family organizations who say the institutions would bring political themes too close to the symbolic resting place of the 2,749 people killed in the 2001 terrorist attack.

Take Back the Memorial calls it a major victory but warns of the need for continued vigilance:

We welcome the decision by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to pursue other locations for the International Freedom Center (IFC) and other non-9/11 related cultural amenities. But make no mistake, that pursuit must continue until it ends with the removal of the IFC and The Drawing Center from Ground Zero. We do not view this decision as ‘one last look around’ – we view this is the last chance for the IFC and The Drawing Center to find a home other than the atop the graves of 2,749 people. They cannot remain there and we will not rest until they are removed.

Stay tuned.

***

Previous:

Take back the memorial: heat’s on
Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero

Scott Johnson at Power Line has more.

Take Back the Memorial responds to Tom Bernstein.

***
Previous:

Take Back the Memorial: D.C. rally
Take Back the Memorial: Heat’s on
Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero

Check out all the latest at Take Back the Memorial.

- Check out this must-see segment from the O’Reilly Factor Tuesday night in which Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade describes an off-air confrontation between 9/11 family member Debra Burlingame–who blew the whistle on the plans to Soros-ize Ground Zero–and Dick Tofel, president of the planned International Freedom Center.

- Note the call yesterday by NYC councilman Alan Gerson to put a freeze on construction of the IFC and built it somewhere else:

“The families have raised legitimate questions as to whether or not that type of museum should be in the memorial quadrant,” said Councilman Alan Gerson. “We should put the Freedom Center Museum briefly on hold. We need to rethink this before we proceed,” Gerson told The [New York] Post following a hearing on Ground Zero reconstruction.

- And read today’s NYPost editorial blasting Tofel’s spin:

Richard Tofel, president of the Inter national Freedom Center, went on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday to answer, yet again, charges that the IFC will be a forum for America-bashing.

But his on-air claims contradicted his recent, seemingly reassuring, Wall Street Journal article on the topic. And his off-air behavior afterwards raised even more questions about his judgment.

No wonder so many folks don’t trust the project.

No wonder folks like City Councilman Alan Gerson are demanding that the project be put on hold.

Tofel simply doesn’t speak straight.

Exactly what Debra Burlingame has warned us all along.

- Take Back the Memorial continues to follow the latest developments. More than 11,000 have signed the website petition to keep politics out of Ground Zero.

Keep the heat on. They’re starting to sweat.

***

Update: Just noticed this statement about the 9/11 memorial from NY George Pataki buried in the New York Times…

“No one is going to turn it into something that is a negative statement about America and our belief in freedom, so long as I am governor of this state.”

They’re listening.

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Previous:

Take back the memorial: rallying on
Take back the memorial: more voices raised
Battle at Ground Zero: The IFC responds
Take back the memorial
No guilt complex at Ground Zero
The Soros-ization of Ground Zero